By Pat Jones
Looming above the main counter of Mill Creek Town Center’s House of Bread is Linda Martin’s 39-foot mural of Midwestern sunlight seeping onto a farm. The mural runs the length of the store and is the reason that Martin brings friends to the local bakery.
Martin and House of Bread manager Anita Warren met through their involvement in the Mill Creek Business Association and its Meet Me in Mill Creek festival. The business association is made up of more than 50 businesses and one of the benefits for members, said Martin, is networking with other business people.
“We get to know the owners,” Warren said. “They are a very supportive group of people. We’re sure that they tell other people about our business and we do the same.”
Members of the association meet for lunch seminars on the third Tuesday of every month. At the lunches business owners network and spread word about local operations.
“A benefit for me is getting to know all of the business owners and being able to walk in the store and know the owner of the store,” Martin said. “There’s kind of a neat camaraderie about it.”
Friendships created in the association extend beyond business practices, said Bob Collard, former owner of Comfort Keepers. After a serious car accident, much of the support he received was from members of the business association.
“The association was supportive in the sense that they sent cards and they sent well wishes,” he said. “And a couple of the members were helpful with the issues of running the business.
“Charlie Gibbons, he’s very active in the business association, would stop in and talk to (my wife) to see if she needed help and help with bill paying,” Collard added.
Making relationships with local owners is the reason that business association president Bruce McLeod initially joined. McLeod bought two PostNet stores in 2002 and was referred to the association and its budding summer festival by the store’s former owner.
“She said that getting involved with the Mill Creek Festival was the best way to meet local business owners,” he said. “And being the owner of a business-to-business business, that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to get to know the business community.
“I got to know more people in six weeks than I could have in six years,” McLeod added.
The primary way that the business association promotes itself is through the Meet Me in Mill Creek festival in July. “The original purpose of the Mill Creek festival was to promote local business (and to) let the residents of Mill Creek know that we’re right in the neighborhood,” McLeod said.
2006 is the fourth year that Martin will head the festival, which will offer crafts and live music again this year. Despite the new services she believes the focus is still to create recognition of local business.
“We call it ‘Meet me in Mill Creek,’ because it’s a chance for the community to come to Mill Creek and meet the businesses.
“It’s a chance for the businesses to come, particularly ones like me that have the business out of their home and don’t have a storefront, and it gives a chance to meet people,” she said.
Awareness of local business is needed, McLeod says, because most people are accustomed to taking their business outside of Mill Creek. Because of the city’s recent surge in new business, however, McLeod believes that leaving the city is no longer necessary.
“If I’m a long-term member of the community I will have my habits established as to where I go for certain things… I may not take notice that there’s a new place right down the street,” he said. “As an association one of our goals is to make the public aware through various means that we’re here in your neighborhood. You don’t have to go to Lynnwood or fight the crowds at the Alderwood mall.”
In addition to the festival, the business association creates and distributes an annual directory of businesses located in Mill Creek. Though association members are highlighted, all local businesses are included. A scholarship fund is also supported by the annual dues of each member. Two $1,000 awards are given to students from Jackson and Archbishop Murphy high schools each year.
The scholarship and directory are both means towards establishing awareness that would not exist without a collaboration of businesses due to their expense. McLeod said that the connection of businesses in the community also allows for a voice in the local government, which is why the monthly luncheons are held at city hall.
“One person talking to government officials doesn’t make much noise, but a whole group makes a lot of noise. We meet in city hall and every now and again the mayor, city manager and various city council members will pop into our meetings.
“We see them pretty regularly and I don’t believe we would except for the fact that they have chosen to give us meeting space at city hall and to help with the integration of local government and business,” McLeod said.
Pat Jones is a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory.
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